7 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Raw (2 March - Results & Review)

1. Where’s The Excitement?

WWE Raw Logan Paul Paul Heyman Austin Theory The Vision
WWE

Granted, WrestleMania 42 is still six-plus weeks away, but if you turned off Raw after Penta won the Intercontinental Championship, would you be able to tell? Would you be hyped? If you lived in Las Vegas, would you buy a ticket?

Two of the four matches on Raw were disappointing. The angles feel like they’re set a few weeks earlier on the timeline, as though they should have been taking place in early February to set the table for this home stretch.

Look at CM Punk/Roman Reigns. The two are dialed in, lobbing insults at each other and threatening to go from “I’m going to bury you next to your father” to “your dumb, ugly, dead dog.” WWE fans are salivating with every confrontation and are buying what they’re selling. But there’s nothing really more to pull fans in.

The Rhea Ripley/Jade Cargill feud sounds like it could be a car wreck, but not in a good, entertaining way. Liv Morgan and Stephanie Vaquer have their own burgeoning feud that’s just getting amped up. Neither is capturing imaginations. And the Undisputed WWE Championship looks like a cluster. If they stick the landing, it could be must-see, but it also could be overbooked nonsense.

WrestleMania Season Raws should not be playing out to silence at any point. While the card might not be fully filled out, there should be enough direction and energy in the building to super-charge fans, which improves the impressions about the programs.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.